NYT Ed on Frist's trust: "A Very Loose Blindfold"

[Rose Siding]

The Securities and Exchange Commission is still investigating the sale by Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, of his stock in HCA, the hospital company his family helped found. There is more at stake than whether Mr. Frist violated securities law through insider trading or whether the advantageous timing was merely coincidental. Mr. Frist must answer to the American people for the fact that his statements before the sale were, at the very least, misleading.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that the trustees of Mr. Frist's so-called blind trusts have written to him 15 times since 2001 describing sales and contributions to the trusts. While legal, those notifications make clear that "blind trust" is a red herring of a term for politicians to hide behind.

The Post reported that in 2003, barely two weeks after he was notified that one of his trusts had received between $15,000 and $50,000 in HCA stock, Mr. Frist told CNBC, "As far as I know, I own no HCA stock." Mr. Frist's office says that he misspoke, and meant that he did not know exactly what was in the trusts. But in the same interview, he also said that he had "no control" over it, a statement he disproved this year by selling the stock.

Senate ethics rules do not even require blind trusts, another example of the weakness of ethics rules for the nation's legislators. Tougher conflict-of-interest standards would be nice, but with Mr. Frist in the leadership, we're not holding our breath.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/opinion/25tue4.html

[Neil Lisst]

1. Frist is finished. He's done worse than Martha Stewart was ...

... was accused of doing.

[WhiteTara]

2. glad to see the NYT is trying

to make up for screwing us so badly on Iraq and * and everything else.